Study for Life

Study for Life by Tero Saarinen (Pori, 1964) is an intense choreographic work that celebrates the delicate music of Kaija Saariaho (1952-2023). Soprano Raquel Camarinha, six Tero Saarinen Company dancers and nine musicians from Asko|Schönberg innovatively bring Saariaho’s vibrant sound world to life. 

As a choreographer, Saarinen is known for his unique movement language that plays with balance and off-balance. Saarinen teaches TERO Technique, which fuses elements from his background in ballet, contemporary dance, and a wide range of Asian traditions. His internationally acclaimed choreographies have often been described as total artworks. 

Saariaho was at the Holland Festival before: in 1996 with Lachenmann, Rijnvos, Saariaho, Webern, and in 2005 with L'amour de Loin at the Concertgebouw.  Study for Life will be Tero Saarinen’s debut at Holland Festival.

Five of Saariaho’s compositions, including Study for Life (1980), Petals (1988), Lichtbogen (1986), Attente and Parfum de l’instant (2002, from Quatre Instants), will be performed live. The poatic stage design by Erika Turunen, Fabiana Piccioli and Sander Loonen, and the unique stage arrangement - with the audience around the stage and freely moving dancers and musicians - blur the line between spectator and performer.  

'We had been planning a collaborative work with Kaija Saariaho for years. In Spring 2023, at Kaija’s request, it was decided that the musical arc of the piece would be built around her first stage work Study for Life. The early work is based on T.S. Eliot’s poem The Hollow Men (1925), which, with its multifaceted anti-war themes, remains profoundly relevant even a hundred years after its publication.' Tero Saarinen

in participation with Asko|Schönberg
coproduction Holland Festival, Bregenzer Festspiele